Boring ride today. I had to listen to a lot of power ballads to remember I was still breathing. One nice thing about riding alone on remote west texas highways is there's no one around to hear how bad you sound singing celine dion at the top of your lungs.
I saw 5 dead deer in the first 20 miles of riding. Some were pretty badly mangled, and definitely picture worthy, but I felt bad doing that. They were lives, after all.
Once upon a time, a transcontinental railroad was built through west texas, and towns sprang up every 30 miles or so to bring needed water for steam powered engines. Most of these towns are more like fossils these days ; langtry, where I'm staying has a population of 19.
At the end of the day, I went to the judge roy bean museum in langtry, named (if u believe bean) for the british actress lilly langtry. You gotta hand it to a guy who can run a bar, and uphold law, even if he made up the laws as he went along. Seems like it'd be easy to lose customers. Or get shot, trying to pull that off in the west. Judge Bean even called a fight to settle a dispute, then held it in mexico (and had a footbridge built so evryone could go) when the texas government told him it was illegal.
Tonight I'm staying in another miracle of warm showers - a trailer owned by the lovely manns that was open and waiting for me to arrive, what with fresh towels, box wine, and hdtv. I have learned to watch tv again on this trip.
Del rio tomorrow (almost a big city!) And then on, in the rain I think, towards austin.
No comments:
Post a Comment